


Of Black Opal

by faceplantmay



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Found Family, M/M, Multi, it's sad but not too sad but not too not sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 01:17:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faceplantmay/pseuds/faceplantmay
Summary: There is a sort of comfort that comes from the idea of home; a pair of boots tossed lazily on a splintered bench where several other shoes peek out from underneath, a certain smell that wafts from room to room, carrying other scents with it as the doors open and close, a laugh that is identifiable from any location.All of these are time stamps, glossy and permanent, on something so intangible, it's like water slipping through the fingers.It's these moments that form a person, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of them convergent on the fixed point that is that single being, and then that single being joins others to make more memories, more instances, that continue to form the people they are, for better or for worse.Till death do they part.Sometimes.





	Of Black Opal

Some how having a giant vanity on a spaceship was one of the priorities for the Taaco twins. It sat a-joined to the sink in the bathroom that split their private quarters, almost ceiling high in reflection, and just wide enough to fit both of them in frame. There was more room in the mirror, of course, but for the two dazzle doves, it could barely contain their splendor and gravitas. Taako often found himself, after a shower, tying his drying hair up in plaited buns that he pinned above his ears, borrowing clips Lup had removed from her own hair to stabilize the style, watching each action with precision so as not to let a single strand be missed. Of all of his habits, this was by far Taako's favorite, the decompression after fighting god knows what before having to flee once again. He loved to shower, yes, to scrub down his arms and legs from whatever gunk and grime he had amassed from the mission, to wash his hair and let the suds flow down into the drain where it would be decontaminated and recycled for other water purposes on board. The whole act of bathing was divine, and temporary, and at certain times, when he closed his eyes for too long, horrific, but the best of it was sitting on a stool Magnus had fashioned for the twins to groom themselves on, draped in a cotton robe, doing his hair.

Sometimes, when both of the twins were in particularly dark moods, they would meet in this space, close off the doors to their rooms, and just doll each other up. Having had only one another for their lives, at least in the respect of dependency, Lup and Taako had a knack of just knowing when their sibling needed to get away. During these moments, Lup would line her lips in her favorite lipstick, smacking her mouth before letting Taako wipe away any smudges with his pinky, cleaning up the lines that may have been askew. He would sit still as she painted his eyes in peacock colors, drawing thin lines of black across his lashes, blowing gently any colored dust that may have settled on his cheeks. They would draw and pluck and dip each other in every color and shade imaginable, no magic involved, just to release some of their emotions. And after their make up was set, after the earrings and bobbles and stickers were in place, Taako would sit his sister down, and from the crown of her head, begin to braid. When missions were particularly rough, like the one on the planet where Magnus died after taking off his suit and inhaling the dust of the mushrooms, Taako would say nothing as he twisted strand into strand, letting Lup quietly cry into her robe sleeve. Lup, in return, also said nothing, as she listened to her brother sniffle above her. This was their time and no one else's, and when the two of them finished with their tears and tempers, Taako would kiss his sister's cheek and they would leave to their rooms, separate, but rejuvenated. No one was ever the wiser.

This of course meant, that one day, one of them would have to do this alone. 

He wasn't sure when it happened, when he first realized Lup wouldn't be joining him in the bathroom for their usual color and cry -they had recently started to hand dye each other's hair during this time when they had run out of interesting things to do with their faces- but he noticed her absence almost immediately. After losing half of the team planet side, Taako, Merle, Lucretia, and Davenport had boarded the Starblaster and taken off to wait out the remainder of the cycle, which took too long for their comfort. Without his sister, Taako had taken to sticking around the main living area of the ship, humming quietly, close by the other magic users as if to replace the energy he was losing from being alone. He would never admit to this, of course, and Merle found himself at the end of a lot of jokes on his behalf, but this didn't bother him as much as Taako had hoped it would. The dwarf was a backboard of insults, everything seemed to bounce right off, but there was almost no return in the venom. Taako had hoped for some sass back, or some snark, but every time he made a throw away comment to Merle, it was like the cleric had taken his words and gently placed it back into Taako's pocket, which pissed him off even more. And there was no point in targeting Lucretia, he would rather be kicked off of the ship before hurting her feelings and dealing with the wrath of the crew; and Davenport was his boss,so although the pickings were easy, Taako knew better than to piss off payroll. So he waited a few months before the cycle began anew, impatient and lonely, wanting his sister back in his space.

 

But when they were restitched to their beginnings, Taako found himself watching Lup as she grabbed Barry's hand and began dragging him to his bedroom, away from the crew, away from their seats, away from him, and he felt a blow to the chest unlike anything he had ever felt before. Magnus came over to him, clapping a weather hand onto his shoulder, and his knees buckled a bit under both the weight of this force, and the feeling of...disappointment? Dejection? Sadness? He reached up and removed the fighter's fingers from his body, tossing down the companionship offered to him as he stomped off to his room, slamming the door shut behind him. 

Lup, however, was preoccupied with Barry, dancing around his room with thoughts and numbers and logic as he wrote down their findings after being left behind on the planet. She was the firing pistons that set his brain in motion, and they worked seamlessly together, her brother just an inkling in the back of her mind. They could talk later, there was plenty of time for tomorrows, but in this instance, Lup and Barry had a plan, and had to work, and that felt so foreign and wonderful that there was nothing else for her to think of except for this very instant, and that set her on fire with excitement. It felt like work had become just surviving, but now she had found a reason to, and while Barry kept jotting down the sequences of thoughts she kept throwing his way, she hoped that everyone felt the same.

She just didn't expect to find Magnus removing the stool from her brother's room, or her brother closing the door to her questions. And when she went to shower for the evening, after spending months dead, she didn't expect to see the bathroom vanity split down the middle by magic, significantly smaller than the size it was before, with two separate sinks underneath each half. When she jiggled the knob that connected her brother's room to the shared bathroom, she was startled to find it locked from his side. It was petty, it was surprising, and it was lonely.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I'm writing a quick compendium of ficlets that are all a part of a drabble type arc, maybe, and I hope y'all will bear with how short they are at first, I'm working towards something a little bit bigger and I really hope y'all will like it.
> 
> And as before, you can find me at faceplantmay.tumblr.com, and can bother me at any time.
> 
> Adios.


End file.
